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Poké Festa 2: Jhoto-ing all the way

Pokemon Silver Afterthoughts

To begin with, my family did not have much money to spare to buy video games so purchasing one has always been a challenge. I never had a part time job where I live since there weren’t any, and the only time I will have the money is when my late uncle would give me some every week, but I really could not say it’s an allowance since it was just enough to make ends meet so I never got the chance to buy a lot video games during my younger days.

My classmate, whose parents can seem to afford almost everything, graciously let me borrow his version of Pokémon Silver after I have been playing Red for almost a year. Immediately, I realized this will be another adventure I’m about to embark, and Silver’s world was bigger compared to Red.

One of the new things I’ve noticed is that both Pokémon Gold and Silver (sorry, I only was able to play one version) has an internal clock, and that would mean days will change like in real life only a bit faster, certain events will happen during what particular day it is (like the bug catching contest in the park) and certain Pokémon will only be available during the day and night (wow, I said too much “day” in a sentence).

I’ve also noticed that they introduced the Pokégear, a nifty gadget-like utility that lets you view the map, listen to radio shows, and also call people you’ve met, specially trainers who you can ask for a rematch or give you vital info on some Pokémon they have seen in certain areas.

Since I only have the original GB, I can’t really say much about how colorful Jhoto looks like, but what I like about this is that, compared to Red, they have added a lot of cool things. This is the game that introduced the option for your Pokémon to hold items, and some items does wonders during battles; some of them heal your Pokémon from status ailments, some help boost a specific attack type, and some Pokémon can only evolve when you trade it holding a specific item.

Eggs were also introduced and breeding but I was not able to utilize it since I only concentrated on Leveling up my Poké army to dominate...err…to become league champions and boot out whom the heck in the current champion (literally).

For the battles, they made a huge improvement on the special effects for the Pokémon moves to fully utilize the GBC’s hardware. Also, there’s the addition of the EXP bar so it will accurately tell when your Pokémon will level up so you don’t need to keep going back and forth to the menu just to check it.

Also, they introduced moves that will affect the weather in battles like Sunny Day and Rain Dance w/c boosts also the element of an attack.

Another feature that I never had the chance to use is the Time Capsule that lets you only send Gen 1 Pokémon to previous games like Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow.

The one thing that thrilled me when I played Silver is that Team Rocket, the evil organization that I was able to crush lead by Giovanni, is again operational, and it’s always fun to thwart their plans not for the sake of good and justice, but for the sake of crushing those Rockets just like before.

They may start small like cutting Slowpoke tails and selling them, w/c I find stupid, but they sure jumped to something bigger and more sinister like forcing Pokémon to act crazy/force evolving them (sorry, my memory is a bit hazy) in the Lake of Rage and also taking the whole Radio tower hostage so they can broadcast their strange wave emitting device farther and more effectively (I still prefer their antics in Red and Blue where they had the whole Silph building under their control).

So after crushing Team Rocket for the second time, it’s off to the Pokémon league and after crushing the Elite Four (why can’t they be 6 or even be 8 for a change? I bet it will be merrier that way), I was shocked to find out it was Lance, who has been helping on my little adventure is the final boss I have to boot out (or so I though he was the last boss).

I personally had a rough time w/ this dragon master since he’s dragons are pure walking Armageddon, but his dragons never felt the same after I introduced them to some Ice Punches and other icy moves leading them to an icy grave.

So there was I, crowned the new champion, and after the credits rolled, I got the chance to venture the kanto region (me and my friends call it the “old world” for some unexplained reason), crush the 8 kanto Gym leaders and battled the real final boss in the game, Red (who we dubbed “Ash” for another unexplained reason), whose Pokémon is as tough as titanium steel and after crushing his team of mutant critters, just disappeared, never to be heard or to be seen again (I bet he’s reflecting weather he will still continue to be trainer or be a plumber, hehe…).

I must say, I really enjoyed silver. It was longer compared to Red and I won’t forget the day I ventured out in the new world w/ a strange little water alligator by my side that is more menacing and intimidating than a huge tortoise w/ torrential water cannons at it’s back. Thank you for reading this Blog!